Maureen F. McHughBesprekingen

Did I pick it for the title? Yes, or at least that was a bonus. Interesting and mildly unsettling collection. They do read like the stories of someone who wants to write novels, and I'll happily try the novels.

I liked the premise (airports are all so alike that you can wander between them sometimes), and setting it against Amelia's mundane relationship and work problems added to the eerie feeling of unreality in the airports. The ending kind of underwhelmed me, though -- I was expecting Amelia to leave the underwhelming boyfriend behind since that's clearly what she wants, but instead she just takes him along to the other airport?½

4.5 stars really. McHugh has such a gift for telling naturalistic, character-driven stories that are nevertheless intense and dramatic. Her books teach me so much about how to write SF.

Jan(na)'s story of loss and self-discovery on a colony world doesn't have a tidy plot or global stakes, but it is so memorable and rewarding—a study of character and culture in the tradition of Ursula K. Le Guin.

A very sad SF novel about the obligations of culture, family, and situational necessity, set in a future Morocco. Hariba is biologically programmed to be an indentured servant; Akhmin is an artificial person bred to serve humans. They're drawn to one another, but even if they can find freedom, it's difficult for either of them to distinguish love from obligation.

I read McHugh's short story "Nekropolis" years ago and adored it. The prose is spare and beautiful and the characters are alive on the page. The novel, with its multiple points of view, is bleaker but more complex. Akhmin emerges as the most interesting character; his perspective is brilliantly alien, yet we empathize with them during his toughest decisions.

Additionally, I have now read a few romances featuring androids, cyborgs, etc. (hint: have written one) and I was so relieved that Akhmin had a complex inner life and was not merely an object on which our oppressed protagonist projects her fantasies of desire and control. (Obviously he's that too.)

The plot has the trademark McHugh elements of structural oppression, prolonged suffering, bad things getting worse, and characters muddling through to a possibly but not necessarily brighter future. It's probably her darkest novel, and I can't say I found the end totally satisfactory, partly because of the shape of the story. We never return to Akhmin's perspective, and the story felt incomplete without it.

Alas, I have now read every novel by one of my favorite writers! Someone pay this lady to write another book.

This book didn't grab me until page 126, but I'm so enamored with China Mountain Zhang and McHugh's short fiction that I kept plodding along anyway.

McHugh does a great job creating an interesting near-future science fiction world and immersing readers in her characters' lives. David and Mayla spend the novel disoriented and traumatized. There's a definite pleasure reading about non-heroic characters dealing with tense situations in fumbling, human ways.

But the plot / pacing were muddled, and on top of it I suffered from false expectations - the back copy promised a "21st-century thriller" and "tropical adventure." (I don't know why I believe book jackets. Possibly a librarian bad habit.) I'm pretty sure adventure thrillers are supposed to be high concept; this novel wasn't high-concept at all, and often I felt a bit mired, watching the characters struggle moment by moment, not certain where the book was going or what the payoff was going to be.

If the novel had been more atmospheric or had a stronger narrative voice, it might have worked, but McHugh's understated, on-the-ground narration meant that it felt more like an intense but unwieldy fever dream. (China Mountain Zhang didn't even try to attempt novel-length pacing; instead it had a few related narratives, so this was her first published attempt.)

Sum up: Definitely a somewhat weak second novel, but was a fast, interesting read (after page 126!) and will certainly read more.

An excellent group of short stories. So well written and engrossing. Tiny little snapshots of people and relationships during insane situations. Loved them.

The (very) good: it perfectly and subtly depicts the way life is in a half-hearted tired communist state, with the mixture of fear/constant threat/guilt for being slightly different and apparent normalcy that can hardly be understood by those not living through it; it also catches the atmosphere of gloom and its effects (depression, suicide) and the constant desperation to do something to hide that from one's own mind. Some characters are well drawn and the reader gets to genuinely care about them. The writing is excellent, realistic but fluid. 4,5/5 there. But:
The bad: the use of way too many first-person points of view is unusual in a tiresome and unnecessary way. Some are totally useless, go nowhere and should have been cut out (the Angel and San Xiang chapters). The rhythm, already quite slow, does not keep up constantly.
The worse: it is not really science fiction; the scifi elements are too few, too low-key, lame/uninteresting and actually just there to offer the pretext for the background.
The worst: the end leaves some story lines unfinished, not in a ”what if?” sense, but in a ”the author did not feel like writing the book any more” way. For example, there is a lot of build up in a life threatening situation on a colony on Mars, where something is wrong and the characters try to find out what and, well, not die, and then... the book ends. What was actually wrong? Was it solved and how? Did they die? We will never know, cause the story just is not continued. Why all the build up then? And it is not the only story line started and not really going somewhere.
To sum up, I really enjoyed reading it and wanted much more of it; but that went on through a constant struggle with some uninspired auctorial choices, so in the end it feels more like a 3,5/5.

En un futuro dominado por la China comunista, un homosexual de ascendencia chino-hispano intenta labrarse un porvenir en unos Estados Unidos que, como todo el planeta, es un país satélite de la gran potencia china, donde la homosexualidad es perseguida. Una ucronía que resulta incluso superior a la clásica «El hombre en el castillo» de Philip K. Dick. Una sociedad creíble y unos personajes y situaciones sumamente humanos con una hipótesis político-social nada desdeñable.

A servant-girl from an oppressive Islamic-like country falls in love with a *harni* or artificial person, like a Blade Runner replicant. Each chapter ripples out showing the effects of her decisions her family and friends, and on the *harni* himself. Well-written, the book examines the divide between rich and poor, real and artificial persons, and the life of a refugee.

I loved this book. And two of my favorite subjects in it: living on mars, and a revolution to put down capitalism. Even if it's just fiction this was so special to me.
The protagonist (he's the ABC, American Born Chinese) likes to go watch the kite races, which is where tiny little humans that strap themselves into Kites and then plug themselves into it, so that it's sort of like plugging your phone into your charger.
This book takes place in what I believe is the 22nd century. Technology has advanced so much that everybody has these ports on their wrists, so that they can plug themselves into stuff. If you want to speak another language, you can be "augmented" for it.

Fliers..
"... A bunch of us go out to a place on LaGuardia where we can drink and make a lot of noise. It's called commemorative, and fliers hang out there. Cinnabar's picked up two guys; a blonde and an ABC, both clearly bent. So's cinnabar. They aren't fliers, of course. Cinnabar has the hots for the blonde, whose name is peter. He isn't tall, not for, you know, a non-flier, I'm not good at heights, maybe one-seven? And not heavy. But next to him Cinnabar looks like nothing but bone and hair. He's pretty, too. And scrawny Cinnabar is not pretty.
(5'6")

After the protagonist works for a year at Baffin Island (Arctic Circle), he gets the chance to get his 4-year degree in engineering at the University in Guangzhou. He feels so all alone there; he knows no one. But he gets lucky, because his tutor turns out to be gay, or what is known as "bent" in the book. He doesn't know how to dress so he notes how his tutor is dressing, as he is a real fashion plate.
The fashion in Gangzhouo:
"I dress in my new clothes; calf-high boots, black jacket with swallow Tails over red, and brushed gray tights like Haitao wore. Am I doing it wrong, I wonder? Have I chosen well? I could disappear on the street in a thousand similar outfits. Will he approve?

The male sex worker Liu Wen, who Zhang meets at Haitao's place:
"Escape is escape. And if I must be a bad element, I might as well allow myself the luxury of indulging as many categories as possible.
Bad elements. There used to be five categories of black elements; landlords, criminals, counter-revolutionaries, capitalists, and one other which I don't remember. We studied it in Middle School in political theory, that was a long time ago for me. Capitalists have been rehabilitated. I don't remember where intellectuals originally came in, perhaps counter-revolutionaries, but bent [gay] as we are, we are criminals. That has not changed in all the years since the revolution."
(Gawd I love this book)

They go to a club that is raided by the police. Haitao and Zhang escape, but only just. They climb floors and spend the night on a catwalk.
"The catwalk is too narrow for us to stand side by side. It's wider than an i-beam, of course, but we are high above the floor and it looks narrower. I take Haitao's wrist with my left hand and start across it. I can see the control panel on the other side and a set of stairs going down, but that side of the building is shadowed and I can't see if there is a loading dock. There should be.
'Hold on to the railing,' I say. Haitao does what he's told. I wish he would think a little for himself, I am cold and I ache and he's acting like a child. Damn it, I ought to leave him here, let him find his own way out.
Anger is good. Anger is better than what Haitao is feeling, than apathy or, what did Maggie Smallwood call it? Perlerorneq, the awareness of the futility of it all. Despair. Underneath my anger I am all too aware that I've been just as paralyzed as Haitao is now."

ZhaoXiezhi was the father of the revolution that destroyed capitalism

A science-fictional gen-X late 20's crisis. Zhang "China Mountain" Zhong Shan is an American Born Chinese (ABC) in New York City in a future where the USA has had a socialist revolution and China is the number one country in the world. It's rich and everyone wants to live there or work there. Zhang looks the part -- he appears Chinese and speaks Mandarin. But he is a diffident gay American who tries to conceal parts of his identity daily. Gradually he fumbles his way towards realising what to do with his life. Zhang is the main narrator, but the book is interspersed with perspectives from others in this world. A shy Chinese girl, a cybernetic kite flyer and some homesteaders from a Martian colony are all linked tangentially to Zhang. The Martian connection is the most tenuous, though their stories are still interesting.

I really enjoyed this book. I started it without knowing anything about it, and I was pleasantly surprised. It’s a dystopian set in a distant future where China is the dominant power in the world, and humans have also begun to colonize Mars. The story starts off in New York, but we visit a few other places, including China and Mars.

There are multiple POV characters, but we spend the most time with the titular character, Zhang Zhong Shan. His name means “China Mountain”, which explains the title. The different POVs are only loosely connected. I was confused for a while because whenever there are multiple POVs in a book, I try to predict what will happen in the story to bring those POVs together by the end since that’s what usually happens. I even thought I’d figured that out at one point, but nope. :) There isn’t a strong driving plot either, we’re just following these people through their lives and the difficulties they face.

I looked forward to having time to read it each evening and finding out what the characters would do or have happen to them next. I didn’t strongly identify with any of them, but I cared about them and was engrossed by their stories. There were a couple really horrible things that happened, and the author telegraphed them so strongly that it was sometimes a little difficult to understand how the characters didn’t pick up on them. I can better understand how San-xiang ended up in her situation. She was so sheltered and inexperienced, combined with her fear of being impolite, and she wasn’t practiced in standing up for herself. But I really thought Zhang should have seen what was coming with Haitao and I was so disappointed that he didn’t. If he had though, I suspect things would not have turned out well for either of them.

This is at times a bleak and depressing book, but there is also some humor and also some hope. Dystopian books often end in ways I don’t care for, but I was satisfied with this one. In Zhang’s first lecture near the end of the book, he concludes that “You cannot predict the future”, an idea that is dangerous in the setting of this book. I saw that as a hopeful note. Sure, maybe sometimes things will be worse than you predict, but they might be better too if people do things to make a difference. Maybe Zhang’s subversive comments to his students will be the butterfly wings that change the course of society for the better in this fictional world. I thought the book mirrored the idea of not being able to predict the future with an unpredictable (at least to me) end. I was afraid we were headed toward a more depressing finish. Instead, it ended on a hopeful note, at least for Zhang. He made choices that might not always result in an easy life, but they held out a lot of promise for a better and happier life doing things he actually enjoyed, with people around him that he could trust and feel comfortable with. I did want a little more closure for the other characters, though.

I’ve decided to rate this at 4.5 stars and round down to 4 on Goodreads. I’m kind of sad that I can’t spend any more time with Zhang; I’ve enjoyed these last few days following him around.½

It won a bunch of awards and was out on the Librarian Recommended end cap at the library. So I knew it was supposed to be good. Knowing that made me leave it alone for a while in my perverse fashion. But I finally read a chapter and I was off. There is a lot of light in the book, descriptions that I enjoyed, they were not tedious or repetitious. The narrative voice has a reserved tone that I liked. Very satisfying ending.

I don't typically care for short stories, or at least I thought I didn't. But I really liked this collection & definitely want to read more by this author.

I read the short story version of this in one of the Tiptree anthologies, and immediately ordered the novel. However, after finishing the full-length novel, I think that it was stronger and more satisfying to read the short story.

Aimless outsider
bleak opportunity knocks
can't coast forever.

All unsatisfied
cold zombies, corporate drones
need a vacation.

Step-parenting sucks
woops, you lost your memory
your friend is a dog.

This book is one that's brilliant on multiple levels, but first, you have to manage your expectations. What do I mean?

This came out in 1990 but it resembles the more modern trend of literary SF in that most of the focus is on characterization and social interactions but in my opinion, it is superior to those because McHugh's wild worldbuilding is detailed, pervasive, and devoted to a fundamental conclusion. Or several conclusions. Interesting ones. In this respect, it's more like Samuel Delany's work.

Stand out features: Post-American revolution where China takes it over. The MC and the focus are on the LGBT community, including a very dystopian view of living conditions, especially in China. Revisionist history, it also has complicated things to say about how history is made that breaks away from most older SF in that it relies on Systems Theory, and best of all, the whole book IS a Study In Systems Theory.

I loved the world-building, and I really got into the main character, himself named China Mountain Zhang, but it's the interwoven nature of the tightly focused life he lives, the one day at a time style of writing that gradually catches hold of you and won't let go.

Like I said, it's more literary SF than anything, but it has a really awesome hard-SF core that satisfies on several additional levels. I definitely recommend this for any classic SF afficiandos who like their stories full of character.

After The Apocalypse" is a collection of nine short stories that look at events in different near-futures after a disaster of some kind.

As you'd expect with Maureen McHugh, the stories tell us as much about the world we live in as the possible future being described.

She has a flair for looking at the world through the eyes of the disadvantaged, the marginalized and the at risk and an impressive ability to build future worlds and believable characters using very few words. Almost every story describes a near-future that stimulates, surprises and convinces and populates it with characters that I recognize and care about.

If you're not familiar with Maureen McHugh's work, this is a good introduction. If you're already a fan then these stories are a treat not to be missed.

I've given short comments on each story below to give you a flavour of the collection. Some of them are available on line if you want to sample them but to get them all, you'll need to buy the book.


The Naturalist

This is dark, surprising and not at all your average zombie story. In this tale of a Zombie Preserve being used as a prison compound cum death-by-zombie execution sentence, the walking dead are not the thing you should be afraid of. I enjoyed the way this story makes the Rational Observer, so beloved of many science fiction stories, into something quite chilling.


Special Economics

This near future story is set in a post-plague China, faced with a scarcity of workers for the first time. It describes a brand of Corporate Slavery that was once common in the US and is now rumoured to be used when the US outsources work to less regulated nations. It appealed to me because it showed how ordinary people will find a way to overcome the economic obstacles in their way.


Useless Things

This is one of the simplest and most powerful stories in the book. It is permeated with a sense of threat, of the real possibility of imminent loss. It captures the quiet desperation of living a life on the edge of an unstoppable slide into poverty and homelessness; of wanting to help others but being afraid that they will do you harm; of having little control and less hope; of having enough to lose to cause worry but not enough wealth to buy security. It's the perfect tale for Trump's America.


The Lost Boy: A Reporter at Large

This one didn't engage me. It felt like an essay on disassociative states and what they imply about identity. It was interesting but it didn't hook my emotions.


The Kingdom of the Blind

This is the most plausible story about the possible emergence of an AI "awareness" that I've read. It's mercifully free of anthropomorphization. There are also so nice points made about women in the coding world that made me think of the recent Google embarrassment.


Going to France

This is the shortest story and the most bizarre. I felt its pull but it was just a little too far out for me.


Honeymoon

I loved the first line of this:



"I was an aggravated bride."


It got me straight inside the head of the woman telling the story. She's a forceful working class woman, who's been working in McDonald's plus two other jobs that paid for her wedding. At first, it seems that she's leading a relatively unexplored life but as the story progresses and she faces some abnormal events, it becomes clear that she is making informed, even philosophical choices because that's the kind of person she is.


The Effect of Centrifugal Forces

This is told from multiple points of view. Unfortunately, the narrator didn't demonstrate this very well and I got confused from time to time. It's focused on people under pressure who can't hold themselves or their lives together.


After the Apocalypse

This is the strongest story in the collection. It showcases Maureen McHugh's ability to help us see the people in the situation and then help us to see the situation differently.

We've been saturated with post-apocalyptic worlds where we revert to something less than we used to be in order to survive. We've been fed tropes about tough survivalists and ruthless raiders and the crumbling remnants of an order that doesn't know it's already extinct. It's like we're practising for something that we expect to happen soon so that we'll know what to expect and what choices to make.

We've been saturated with post-apocalyptic worlds where we revert to something less than we used to be in order to survive. We've been fed tropes about tough survivalists and ruthless raiders and the crumbling remnants of an order that doesn't know it's already extinct. It's like we're practising for something that we expect to happen soon so that we'll know what to expect and what choices to make.

The achievement of this short story is that it humanises the tropes we've been taught. It shows us that, in other parts of the world, the apocalypse has already arrived and that the flood of refugees we are so used to seeing on the media could one day be us.

The story is told from the point of view of a woman on the road with her daughter, heading through an America without electricity or fuel or clean water or food or any of the things that Americans take for granted.

As they travel, the woman slowly comes to realise that everything she knew is gone. That even though she's an American, she's now just another refugee. Then she decides what to do about it.

Her situation, her reactions and her final choice seemed very real to me. After the apocalypse, we're still there, only the future we assumed we were entitled to is missing. Dealing with that realisation would tell each of us a great deal about who we have always been.

It's interesting. For those of you curious, title phrase appears on pg. 286.

A little meandering, depressing to imagine the world can still be so nasty... but enjoyable, too. Very human SF.

Elegant. Flawed. Moving. Fun. Like a cover version of THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, but more naturalistic and personal. A bit thin in places though, especially the latter sections. McHugh is a great writer and I wish she would publish more, but this is not her best work. It was good enough, though, to inspire me to re-read her other novels--to give you an idea of the scale I'm grading on.

I know clunky world building is often part of SF and fantasy, but oh boy this book. For example, when you're fluent in a language, you don't usually tend to translate words and phrases back into your native language, because you know, you speak the other language fluently. Zhang, the main character of this book, speaks Chinese basically fluently, and lives in a world steeped in Chinese culture. His story is also narrated directly by him. Nonetheless, Zhang constantly translates just about every Chinese word, and explains every particular of Chinese culture he encounters. Obviously this is for the benefit of the reader with no background in either of those two subjects, but God, find a less distracting method of telling your story then. It just speaks to the heavy handedness and lack of technical imagination on the part of McHugh.

The smaller stories built into the book are a distraction as well. They serve no real purpose -- besides padding out a story McHugh clearly didn't believe could stand on its own -- and were distractions.

And not so much the authors fault, many SF novels suffer from changing technology and attitudes, but the very retro slang and behavior towards LGBT people didn't help it for me either. I mean yes, the Chinese government to this day is still homophobic in many ways, but the novel is so painfully a product of late 80s/early 90s America in regards to queer people. It damaged some what one of the novel's few strengths, its diversity. But this complaint is more nitpicky.

I found these short stories to be average. Characters aren't developed, plots seem like they lack focus, and there are numerous spelling mistakes and words placed in sentences where they don't belong. While some of the stories are interesting, overall the book is unrememerable.